Bloodlines
by Nomad1
Summary: The Bartlet administration's faced its share of scandals... but some are more deadly than others.
1. I

** Bloodlines **

By Nomad  
June 2002

**Spoilers**: I'd say everything up to "Night Five" is fair game.  
**Disclaimer**: I don't own the extended Bartlet family or any of the other characters featured in this fic.

* * *

** I **

"CJ." She looked up, and frowned at the middle-aged reporter standing before her.

"Eric?"

Eric was an old-school reporter, a veteran of the White House beat. Unlike most of the eager young journalists out to prove themselves, it was rare for him to come to her to push private points or ask for clarification. When Eric had a question, he raised it in the pressroom, loud and clear and perfectly honed to give her the minimum of wriggle room.

"Can we talk?"

She nodded and rose to close her office door, taking in his sober expression. _Oh, God. Bombshell._ She quickly ran over in her mind a list of possible explosions, and came up blank. Wasn't every possible scandal they had out in the open already? The president seemed perfectly healthy, Leo wasn't drinking, and Sam wasn't picking up call-girls. _Josh?_

Her heart skipped a beat as she followed that thought to the next logical step. _Stanley._ If the press had hold of the news that the president had been talking with a psychiatrist...

She tried to look on the bright side. _Hey, maybe he's just gonna tell me he's heard there are half a dozen nuclear missiles headed our way._

Eric produced a manila envelope. "There's a story, CJ. I don't like it. But it's happening."

"You're giving me a heads up?" she demanded, surprised. That sort of behaviour she might just expect from a smitten Danny, but a hardened old pro like Eric?

He tapped the envelope meaningfully against the desk. "All the lead time in the world isn't gonna keep this one down, CJ. I'm giving you the heads up because it's not politics, and I don't like it."

He handed her the envelope, and she took it with suddenly numb fingers. "Thank you."

Eric nodded, and left. It was a long moment before CJ could bring herself to tug the envelope open and slide the contents out onto her desk.

She read for a moment. Then she very carefully slid the glossy black and white photograph out from behind the written copy. And then she closed her eyes, feeling sick.

"Oh, Jesus."

* * *

Leo looked up as Margaret appeared in his doorway. "CJ," she told him.

"Send her in."

He took one look at the press secretary's face, and his day abruptly disappeared downhill. "CJ?"

"Leo, there's a story," she said without preamble. "And it's bad."

"How bad?"

"The worst."

"The worst?" he asked, with a cynical eyebrow that reminded her just how bad some of the previous had been. His stomach took an abrupt drop as CJ simply nodded.

"It concerns the president."

She handed him an envelope, and he took it with sweaty hands. He pulled out the folded sheet inside and began to read, and then let out his breath in an explosive sigh. "C'mon, CJ, this is unmitigated bull-"

"There's a picture," she said pointedly. Leo looked down at the envelope as if she'd told him it had a bomb in it. Gritting his teeth, he slid the photograph out. And looked at it.

He lowered his head into his hands.

"Holy Mary, mother of God."

"Yeah."

He looked back up at CJ. "Get everybody in here. Now."

* * *

Josh, Toby and Sam came skidding into Leo's office.

"What's going on?" demanded Josh.

"We've got a smear story," CJ supplied.

Toby grimaced. "Stay above it," he advised. "We're not gonna-"

"It's bad," Leo cut him off.

"How bad, Leo?" asked Josh gingerly.

"Bad." He straightened up in his seat. "The story is that the president has an illegitimate son. Thirty-one years of age, living in New Hampshire."

The explosion of disbelieving sounds was simultaneous. "C'mon, Leo, they expect anybody to believe that kind of crap?" demanded Sam.

"There's a picture."

Everybody froze. "What... kind of picture?" asked Toby slowly.

"This kind." He slid it across the desk.

Everybody looked down at the black-and-white glossy. Just a snapshot, a young man in a sports jacket, twisting round to talk to somebody. A young man with a profile so familiar, only the clothes and the make of the car behind him proved the picture was not that of another man, twenty years in the past.

One by one, they all looked up at the Chief of Staff. "The boy's a Bartlet, Leo," said Josh softly. Leo nodded.

"That's a given." He stood up.

"What do we do, Leo?" asked Sam, looking lost and suddenly very young.

"You find out every single possible scrap of information about where this story came from." He took a steadying breath. "And I... will go and speak to the president."

Right then, not one person in that room envied him the closeness of his relationship with their leader.


	2. II

** II **

"Thirty-one years old," said Josh softly.

"Three years younger than Liz Bartlet," Toby said pointedly. They all winced.

"Dammit!" shouted Josh.

Sam rubbed his temples. "It can't be true, right?"

"No way," said CJ, shaking her head.

"Nuh-uh," agreed Josh. But the worried gaze they exchanged was a little less certain.

"The president's family like, founded that state," Sam pointed out, sitting up. "There must be Bartlets all over New Hampshire."

"Yeah. Yeah!" said Josh, more forcefully. "We need to track this down. Find the connection, find the relation, find the motive."

"Jealous cousin?" suggested CJ, a touch more hopefully.

"We can spin that," Toby nodded firmly.

"If it's the truth," said Sam darkly. None of them knew how to answer him.

Josh sprang to his feet. "Who is this guy? Why now? We got a name? Is there a mother?"

"An aunt," said CJ, grimacing. "The mother just died. Cancer."

Josh closed his eyes. "Oh, this gets better and better."

"What's the boy's name?" Toby asked matter-of-factly.

"Daniel Gerrold. The aunt is Felicity Gerrold. No name on the mother."

"Well, let's find one, by God," Toby said forcefully. "We need to know who these people are, and why they've got it in for the president."

"On it," agreed Josh. They all split up and dashed for their separate offices.

* * *

Leo cleared his throat awkwardly as he hovered outside the Oval Office. When was the last time he'd felt this nervous about approaching the president? Well, that was easy to answer. Because it had been never.

Charlie looked up at him curiously. "Leo, d'you want me to-"

"Uh, yeah. Is the president-?"

"He's sitting with the First Lady," Charlie supplied.

Well, wasn't that just the icing on the cake? "Can you tell him I need a word in private?"

"Yes, sir."

He couldn't bear the thought of catching Abbey's eye right now. Not with this burning a hole in his pocket.

It wasn't true. There was no way in hell it could ever be true.

All the same, he didn't want to be the one to catch Abbey's eye.

The president looked up as he entered, his wife mercifully already gone. His face tightened as he caught Leo's expression, and he automatically stood up. "What is it, Leo?"

"You should probably sit back down, sir." He hesitated, wondering if he could actually begin to approach this subject, put any kind of question into words. He didn't think so. Instead, he simply held out the envelope. "There's a story. It's gonna run tomorrow morning. You should read this."

Jed looked at him in puzzlement, but silently extended a hand for the envelope. He slid his glasses on, and began to read. His expression remained flat and unchanging as he scanned the report, and even when he looked at the picture. He neatly shuffled the pages back together, and handed them back to his Chief of Staff. "Deal with this, Leo," he said softly.

"Yes, sir." Not that he had the faintest of ideas how to go about doing that. This wasn't a scandal the Bartlet administration knew how to take on. It wasn't an eventuality they'd ever bothered to make plans for, because it could never happen.

It could never happen.

But here he was, Leo McGarry, right-hand man to the president... and terrifying as the prospect was, he knew it was his place to do this. Much as he didn't want to. He licked his lips nervously. "Sir-"

"Leo." The president's tone and expression were a warning. _Don't cross this line._ He sure as hell didn't want to cross this line. But what choice did he have?

"Sir, I'm sorry, but I have to ask you-"

"Leo," the president growled, "don't even _think_ about-"

"Sir, I'm sorry, but _I have to ask you_," he shouted his president down. "Is there any possibility-"

"Leo." Jed shook his head sharply.

"Is there any possibility-" He soldiered on relentlessly, too far in to turn back. "Any possibility at all... that the boy could be your son?"

The heavy words fell like stones into a calm pool, sending ripples through the silence. Jed met his eyes, gaze as cold as a glacier. "_No_," he said, firmly and deliberately.

"Sir." Leo nodded slowly. His brain was gabbling at him to apologise, but how could he? A line had been drawn somewhere here; a line between what the job of the Chief of Staff demanded... and what the trust of a thirty-year friendship forbade.

The question had needed to be asked... but now that it had, there was no way to un-ask it.

"Go," Jed ordered, voice low, but hard and unyielding as concrete.

Leo left.


	3. III

** III **

_You're a fool, Abigail Bartlet. A fool and twice a fool if you even think for a minute-_

She was well aware of her own foolishness. And yet she felt powerless to stop it.

She wanted to be angry. She _was_ angry, blazing with a white hot fury at the people who dared to do this to them, to a family who had committed no crime but to live in the public eye. And yet underneath all the anger was a single tiny kernel of fear.

And that made her even angrier. But only at herself.

_You know, you_ know-

_You think you know._

She thought she knew her husband. Thought she knew every beat of his heart as intimately as her own, knew his every mood and every moment of weakness. She knew all his secrets.

_Do you know all his secrets?_

Jed would never - her husband would never-

_But what if he did?_

Abbey knew it wasn't true; knew it in her bones, in her spirit, in the heart that had been twinned with Jed Bartlet's so long that they were almost one. Every part of her screamed that it was a trick, a slander, a vicious lie.

But one little voice whispered otherwise. It was a dark thought, a wrong thought, a nasty little whisper of insiduous suspicion that she couldn't quite lock down no matter how she tried. It ate away at her, and she couldn't make herself ignore it.

Jed Bartlet would never betray her. And yet she needed to feel the reinforcement of that, feel the affirmation that would make her believe what she should already trust. It wasn't enough to know it in her bones, she had to see it _proved_.

Jed had been in no mood for company after he'd told her what news Leo had brought - the dark voice whispered troubling possibilities, but really she knew it was just anger and frustration speaking. Regardless, that had given her the chance she needed to sneak away... and look for the answers that she should already know.

"CJ."

CJ jumped guiltily at the sound of the First Lady's voice from behind her. "Oh! Ma'am, uh, Abbey-"

"I heard about the story, CJ," she said brusquely.

CJ vacillated awkwardly, obviously undecided about who she should be protecting, and from what. Abbey made the decision simpler. "I want to read it. Now."

Her husband's press secretary knew better than to argue with that tone of voice. In fact, most people did. CJ handed her a typed sheet, and she read it, her lips compressing into a tight thin line. It was a simple 'factual' piece, deliberately non-sensational - which would only serve to make it that much easier to believe.

Still, even so, she doubted that Leo and her husband would be so worked up over a vaguely stated smear story. Unless there was...

"There was a photograph, wasn't there?" she demanded. "Show me."

Abbey couldn't miss the anxious grimace CJ wore as she handed it over. Was she about to see a photograph of her husband in another woman's arms? If so, would he have an explanation? Could she believe it if he gave one?

It wasn't her husband in the photograph. But the brief second it took to realise as much had the force of a kick in the teeth.

The young man in the picture wasn't her Jed. But the family resemblance was so strong their relationship seemed unquestionable.

* * *

They gathered in Leo's office. The question was on everybody's lips, but Josh spoke it aloud. "Did you speak to the president?"

"Yeah."

"And?" Josh demanded.

"And he assures me that the story is a complete fabrication." Nobody missed Leo's distasteful grimace. That was one conversation that hadn't gone well.

Nobody let out a breath - because none of them would have admitted to holding one. Josiah Bartlet unknowingly fathering an illegitimate child was a stretch to believe - the idea of him deliberately concealing such a child unthinkable.

Wasn't it?

Leo surveyed his troops, jaw set. "What's our next move?"

"Tell them it's slander, and they can't print it!" Sam burst angrily. Josh shook his head.

"Too late. It's got juice."

CJ nodded and gave Sam a sympathetic smile. "It's out of the bag, Sam. Start issuing denials before the story hits the shelves, and every columnist in country and his brother'll start screaming 'cover up'."

"It's that picture that'll kill us with the public," Leo nodded. "Not to mention any chance we have of an easy fix. Look at the boy - there's a family connection there somewhere. We can't pull out a paternity test if there's gonna be the tiniest possibility of uncertainty."

He looked at the rest of them. "We need to track the mother, we need to track the aunt, and we need the full story so we can start cutting holes in it. You three, get on it. CJ, go home and get some sleep."

"Leo-" she protested.

"You're the face of this administration, CJ, we can't afford to have you looking like you've been up all night."

"I have been up all night!"

Leo stood firm. "This is a make or break scandal, people. We're gonna be denying it right out of the box, and we can't afford to show the slightest hint of spin. CJ, go home and get some sleep. And come back tomorrow ready to hit this thing head on. We don't play this right, it's not gonna matter how many holes we can poke in the story further down the line. We can't stop ourselves from looking bad - we just have to make sure we don't look worried."


	4. IV

** IV **

"Oh, man." Josh dropped another newspaper on the desk. "This is not good."

"And you're surprised at that?" said Toby with a pointedly raised eyebrow.

"Look at this." Josh spread the pages, and Sam leaned over.

"Jesus," he breathed softly. The _Washington Post_ had gone one better than its rivals, not just printing the story but fishing through its archives for a photograph of a younger Jed Bartlet to place alongside that of Daniel Gerrold.

The resemblance, obvious even in the face of the president as they knew him now, was almost frightening.

"You know, I don't look half that much like my dad," Josh observed quietly. Sam shook his head.

"Me neither." He looked at Josh seriously. "This is bad, isn't it?"

"Oh, this is way beyond bad."

CJ arrived, stack of papers in hand. She tossed them one by one onto the desk. "Family Values, Family Values, Family Values - gee, they're really taxing their creativity on this one, aren't they? Oh, here's a new one; 'Secrets and Lies: Another Skeleton in the Bartlet Closet'."

"Wait 'til you see the centrefold." Josh waved the matched pair of photographs at her.

"Well, that'll go just fine on the news at ten, next to the footage of my emphatic denial," CJ observed dryly.

"Play up the New Hampshire connection," said Toby from the back of the room.

"Founding of the state," Josh nodded. "You can't refute the family resemblance, so go with it."

"The president agrees that it's a remarkable likeness, but he's pretty sure he'd remember if he had a son," Sam chimed in. "He would point out that yes, New Hampshire is his home state - in fact, it's home to the entire Bartlet dynasty, stretching back X number of generations."

"Got it." CJ grimaced. "Unfortunately, the next question's gonna be pointing out that the aunt's claiming the father is specifically _our_ Bartlet."

"Challenge her to present evidence," Josh said sharply. CJ scowled at him.

"Oh, attack the woman speaking out after thirty years of frightened silence, that'll play well."

"Point out that you don't know the full story-" began Toby.

"-Since the press have been pretty skimpy on the details," CJ interjected, and he nodded.

"Make a point that it's the _aunt_ coming forward, not the mother. She could easily be mistaken."

"Generally plays a lot better than 'lying bitch'," CJ noted wryly.

"You bet," agreed Josh.

"Josiah Bartlet's a pretty famous name." Sam took up the narrative. "Kind of name that gets handed out left right and centre in an extensive, long-established family-"

"With strong genes," Josh added.

"I'm not sure that's helping our case," CJ pointed out.

"No, but it's getting the possibility out there. Can we get any pictures of the president's family - father, brother, any uncles or cousins? Make a big thing of how much they all look alike."

"_Do_ they all look alike?" CJ wondered. Josh blinked.

"I sure hope so. Otherwise we're deeply screwed."

"We can be screwed deeper than this?" demanded Sam.

"Guys?" CJ pointed out. "We're playing defence here, and there's only so far it can take us. All we're doing is widening the pool of possible fathers - we're not taking the president out of it."

"We're on it," said Josh, and Sam and Toby both nodded.

"Okay. I've gotta be out there." CJ left, and Sam looked across at Josh.

"We're on it?"

"As soon as we figure out what 'it' is and how to get on board? Yeah, sure."

* * *

The First Couple watched CJ's press briefing in taut silence. Abbey couldn't help glancing across at her husband's stony face. It held no clue to what he was thinking.

She learned that this woman - this woman who they were claiming to be 'the other woman' - was named Rebecca Gerrold. Was it wrong to hate a dead woman when you knew nothing more about her than her name? Probably, but she felt the need to anyway.

The press were like jackals, circling CJ and firing leading questions, but Abbey could almost sympathise with them. She had questions, too. A whole host of burning questions which she knew asking would be a terrible idea, and yet she needed to hear the answers to.

Love, trust. She loved her husband. She trusted him. She always knew what he was feeling, always knew what she was thinking.

Why couldn't she tell what he was thinking?

The briefing ended, and Jed rose to silently switch off the TV. "Well," he said softly.

"Well," Abbey repeated, and wondered why she couldn't find any more words to string after it.

"Rebecca Gerrold..." she said after a long silence. "Did you know her?"

The question slipped out, almost against her will. She couldn't tell if Jed was stung by it or not.

"No. I've never heard of her," he said simply.

Well, that was all right then, wasn't it? If Jed said he'd never met the woman, then he'd never met the woman. Her husband was honest, almost pathologically so. She had no reason to suspect he would ever tell a lie.

She just wished she could figure out whether she believed him.


	5. V

** V **

"Do we want to meet the woman?" CJ rubbed her forehead.

"I can't see that ending well," said Leo dryly.

"On the other hand, we can't look like we're afraid of her," Sam pointed out.

"What about the boy?" asked Josh. "What's his place in this? Has he said anything?" They'd all fallen into the habit of calling him 'the boy', even Sam who was barely a handful of years older. A man was just a man. A boy was somebody's son.

CJ shook her head. "So far as I know, not a word."

"Maybe he doesn't want a part of this circus," Josh said optimistically.

"That's not gonna help us," Toby corrected him. "In fact, it's ten times worse. All of a sudden he's not a money-grabber or a glory-hound, he's a sweet kid who doesn't want any trouble."

There was a brief silence, during which everybody's eyes were magnetically drawn to that article in the Post. It was hard to find a way to exonerate their leader... doubly hard, when there was a niggling little voice in the back of your brain saying 'boy, would you look at that...'

"How can this be happening now?" Josh finally burst. "Look at the guy! You're telling me nobody noticed he looked like the president before now?"

"Apparently he's been living in England," CJ supplied. "Came home briefly for his mother's funeral, which I guess is when the photo was taken."

Toby buried his face in his hands. "Somebody please please tell me he didn't suddenly hop on a plane out of the country at the start of the campaign."

"I have no idea," said CJ with a shrug.

"Okay, okay!" Leo rolled his eyes. "Let's not go borrowing problems when we don't even know they exist. It's not as if we don't have enough to be going on with." He looked at the three men. "What have we found on the mother?"

"It doesn't look good, Leo," said Sam tiredly.

"Well, you really needed a degree to tell me that one," said Leo sarcastically.

Sam just shook his head. "Rebecca Gerrold, died two months ago of stomach cancer. Grew up in the village near the school where-"

"-The president's father was headmaster," Leo finished, wincing.

"And which both the president and his brother attended," Sam nodded.

"How old was she?"

Sam glanced at a sheet of paper. "Twenty-one when the kid was born."

Leo calculated for a moment. "She'd have been what, eleven, twelve when the president left for university? He'd have no reason to have known her."

"But his father was in the area until he died in '82," Sam pointed out.

"So they could have met!" Leo shrugged angrily. "But they're seriously suggesting the president didn't just have an affair, he had an affair with a teenage girl he couldn't possibly have had a chance to get to know?"

Josh shifted uncomfortably. "Leo... They don't know him like we do."

"I'm not sure you can know anybody when it comes to crap like this," Sam said darkly.

None of them could meet his eyes. Sam had demons of his own when it came to fathers and affairs.

"Look." Leo stood up decisively. "Let's not lose sight of one thing here. The president says he didn't father that kid? He didn't father that kid. End of story. So let's hurry up and find the- what?" he snapped irritably, as Margaret appeared in the doorway.

She jerked a thumb behind her. "Felicity Gerrold's on the news."

They all scrambled out of the office in search of the nearest TV.

* * *

Felicity Gerrold was a neatly turned-out older woman who had 'religious upbringing' stamped all over her. She read very precisely from a prepared statement to the cameras.

"-I kept silent this long out of respect for my sister's wishes, but now morality prompts me to come forward."

"Yeah, right, it's _morality_," said Josh. Donna elbowed him sharply.

"Quiet."

"My sister was blinded by her innocent faith in the man who left her with child and then abandoned her. She would have done anything to protect him, even keeping such a shameful secret for all this time. But I have to ask to ask myself," she looked up at the camera, "what kind of a man would prey upon an innocent and trusting teenage girl?"

"She's said 'innocent' twice now," Toby observed.

"So send her a thesaurus," snarked CJ, raising the volume.

"What kind of a man would dally with a younger woman when he had a wife and children of his own? What kind of a man would leave her to raise a child alone, never acknowledging or taking responsibility for his own son?"

She touched her throat, as if momentarily choked up, and Josh made a disparaging noise.

"Give it up lady, this isn't Masterpiece Theatre."

The woman looked earnestly up at the camera. "My nephew is a fine, intelligent, upstanding young man," she said. "He deserves the birthright he was cheated out of. He deserves to be acknowledged. The time has come for Josiah Bartlet to stand up and admit to his past misdeeds."

The interview ended, and CJ killed the sound with the remote. She surveyed the others, and succinctly summed up the general feeling.

"Well, that's _us_ pretty well screwed."


	6. VI

** VI **

As CJ pointed the car in the general direction of home, some masochistic instinct prompted her to keep cycling through the news stations, listening to the same old story she'd been hearing all day.

_-Shock allegations that President Bartlet is the father of-_

-Ms. Gerrold told reporters that her innate sense of morality compelled her to break the thirty-year silence and-

-Thirty-one years old. Rebecca Gerrold grew up in the president's-

-A series of letters written over the eleven years following her son's birth. Ms. Gerrold-

CJ nearly rear-ended the car in front. _Letters?_ She pulled over, causing a fanfare of protesting horns, and glared at the radio as if it was lying to her.

"Oh, _crap_," she said aloud to the interior of the car.

She pulled an illegal U-turn, and headed back to the White House.

* * *

"We're getting one faxed through now," Donna called out to her as CJ came dashing up. She ducked through into communications.

"_Letters_?"

"I gotta tell you, this is turning into one of the best days of my career," Sam observed wryly.

"_Letters_?" CJ shrieked again.

"They gotta be faked," said Josh, sticking his head in.

"They're supposed to be twenty, thirty years old, you think she'd be that stupid?"

"We can hope," said Josh with a shrug and a tired smile.

Donna appeared in the doorway with a fax. "Josh."

"Thanks." He took it, and CJ immediately relieved him of it and started to read. "Hey!"

"Shut up." She scanned the letter. "Well, first good news. It's only signed 'JB'."

"I would classify that more as 'non-bad' than you know, good," Josh pointed out. CJ glared at him.

"I'm a woman on the edge, Joshua Lyman, don't try to topple me."

"Okay." He and Sam crowded around to look. "Does that look like the president's writing to you?"

"I don't know," shrugged Sam helplessly.

"It could be," CJ admitted. "It's all, you know, flowery and suchlike. Where's Toby?"

"At home, presumably sleeping." Sam sighed. "I wish I could join him."

"I'm sure he'd be glad of the company," CJ said dryly.

"Hey!" Sam blushed. "That's not what I-"

"I think you guys should _all_ get some sleep," Donna observed from the doorway.

"I think we should get a handwriting analysist," Josh decided.

"Where from?" CJ wanted to know. "The press are probably out there now, dragging every graphologist in DC out of their beds."

"Secret Service," supplied Sam. "They do hate mail analysis, that kind of thing. They've got to have a guy."

"Somebody get Ron Butterfield," said Josh.

* * *

"Well?" CJ demanded urgently. The Secret Service man studied the handwriting samples maddeningly slowly. He was slim and silver haired... not what you'd expect from an agent at all. But then, the Secret Service also did a lot of undercover work.

"Is the writing the same or not?" Josh demanded.

He neatly shuffled the papers together and looked at them over the top of his glasses.

"Well, if this was a straightforward case of suspected forgery... my first instinct would be to say no."

Something about the way he stated that dissuaded the staff from leaping to hug each other triumphantly.

"My psychic 'but' detector is warning me I won't like what you're about to say," CJ said cautiously.

"However," the agent continued, "there are certain points of similarity between the two samples of writing. Certainly not enough overlap to declare a match - but given that there's a thirty year gap between samples, and the possibility that deliberate attempts may have been taken to disguise the handwriting..."

"You can't rule it out," finished CJ grimly.

He shook his head. "I can't."

She looked at Josh. "He can't rule it out."

"Once again, the Bartlet team play for a no-score draw," Josh observed.

"I hate my life," Sam announced brightly, as the graphologist left.

CJ groaned heavily, and extended her hands like a pair of scales. "Sleep. Tracking down those letters. Sleep. Tracking down those letters."

"Will the world end if we don't do it tonight?" asked Sam.

"Maybe."

"Do we care?" asked Josh.

"Right now?" CJ raised an eyebrow. "Not even slightly."

"Let's go home," said Sam.

"Good idea."

As they walked out, Josh turned to CJ. "You have a psychic butt detector?"

"Joshua?"

"Yes?"

"Shut your mouth before I kill you."

"Okay."


	7. VII

** VII **

Apparently, whatever graphologists the newspapers were able to dig up shared much the same opinion as the Secret Service's resident expert. However, the newspapers much preferred to downplay the uncertainty in favour of 'Gerrold Letters "Could Be Bartlet's", Say Experts'.

Leo finished the last of the newpaper reports, and looked up with a sigh. "We're taking water fast here, people. Somebody give me some good news?"

There was a long, dull silence. Leo sighed.

"Okay. Some mediocre news, maybe?"

"It's looking bad, Leo," CJ said plaintively. "The resemblance alone's pretty damning, but add to that the letters which can't be ruled out..."

"I don't like where this is going, CJ," Leo said warningly.

"Leo-" began Sam. There was the click of the door behind them, and a sudden, chilly silence.

Jed Bartlet regarded them all with cold, steely eyes. He smiled grimly. "Already planning my funeral, I presume?"

Leo coughed uncomfortably. "Sir-"

"Don't bother lying to me, Leo." He raked his gaze over the five of them, and none of them met it; ashamed that he would see something in their eyes of the doubts they'd entertained about him. Afraid that in _his_ eyes they might see some confirmation of them.

"Mr. President, we're under attack from all sides," Leo said. "This kind of story has mileage even when there's no evidence to back it up, and as it stands-"

"They have no evidence, Leo," the president corrected him in clipped tones. "They have no evidence, because it isn't true."

Leo bowed his head apologetically. "Yes, sir."

"People see what they're shown, Mr. President," spoke up Toby. "And right now, they're seeing Felicity Gerrold putting out her story, and us doing nothing to contradict it."

"Well, _contradict it_," said the president sharply.

Josh rubbed his eyes. "Mr. President, I don't- I don't see any way to resolve this without, uh, without finding the real father."

"So find him," Jed suggested.

Toby laughed humourlessly. "Mr. President-"

"The man is out there somewhere, Toby. You just need to start looking. Might I suggest," he said with a cold smile, "you start with my brother."

The president turned on his heel and marched out. The rest of them exchanged slightly abashed glances. CJ closed her eyes and tilted her head back.

"Jonathan Bartlet."

"JB," Josh chimed in.

CJ thumped the heel of her hand against her forehead. "Christ, we're idiots."

Leo was already looking around for his assistant. "Margaret? Get me the president's brother."

* * *

They gathered in the Oval Office, around the phone. Abbey sat beside her husband, but nobody could quite miss the slightly off vibe between them. The senior staff all clustered together, and pretended not to notice. That they themselves were suffering doubts of their president's integrity was reason enough for guilt, but the First Lady...

Surely it was just the tension.

Margaret appeared in the doorway and gave Leo a nod, which he passed on to the president. The president leaned over and punched the button.

"Johnny," he said loudly.

"Jed!" The staff all started in surprise at the familiar tone of the voice on the other end. The twist of wry humour that coloured it sounded just like their president... or rather their president as he had been before the bombshell dropped. "I guess I don't have to ask you what you're calling about..."

"You've seen the papers," said his brother shortly.

"Yeah. I can see why they're running with it, too. Kid looks a hell of a lot like you, Jed."

"He's not mine." The president's tone was flat rather than defensive.

"I pretty much had that one figured for myself, Jed." The gathered staff all leaned forward, hanging on his words. "So I guess I know what you're gonna ask me."

"Well?"

The pause was long enough to double the tension in the room. Then a heavy sigh crackled through the speaker. "Jed, I wish I could help you. But... I'm sorry. The kid's not mine."

The glances the senior staff shot each other were laden with despair.

* * *

CJ looked up from where she was slumped in her chair as Carol appeared in the doorway. "You've got them?"

"Right here." Carol waved the stack of faxes and photocopies as proof. "These are all the ones that've been released. At least that the press are admitting to."

CJ pushed herself upright and reached for them. "Thanks, Carol." If 'thanks' was quite the word. The wad of papers was dishearteningly thick.

Then again, when it came to wading through love letters that might or might not have been written thirty years ago by their country's very much married Commander-in-Chief, _any_ number was too high.


	8. VIII

** VIII **

"Christ, this is like... this is like rifling through somebody's underwear drawer!" CJ yanked her glasses off in a disgusted motion. The others groaned in acknowledgement.

The letters were... well, the letters would have been just about manageable, if they'd existed in a vacuum. They were mercifully free of graphic details and excessively flowery declarations. In fact, there was something almost coldly precise about them, the letters of a man more concerned with the practicalities of carrying out a love affair than the depth of his passions.

_I love you. I want to see you. Come to meet me..._

It's been too long since we last spoke. I'll be alone this weekend. We can see each other...

The later letters... well, there was no chance of claiming the letter-writer had been in the dark about his son. CJ cursed her press secretary's brain for even thinking along those lines, looking for a way to spin this. She didn't _need_ to spin this to protect the writer, because it _wasn't_ her president. She knew it wasn't.

She was absolutely rock certain it wasn't.

She was nearly positive it wasn't.

CJ vacillated between thinking the writing sounded nothing like the man she knew, and hearing a haunting echo of his voice in it. There was little of the warmth, the humour, the affection she associated with him - and yet the way the words were strung together, the style of it, felt worryingly familiar. As if a completely different personality were writing with the same voice.

The letters about the boy troubled her most of all. She wasn't sure if her male coworkers saw it, but as a woman of the world who'd been around the block a few times, CJ recognised the web of words for what it was. The writer praised the young Rebecca, told her of his love and trust for her, his faith that she could raise their son herself and be strong and brave until...

Until a time that he never quite specified. The letters of an older, wiser man stringing a girl along with empty promises. Yes, we have to keep it a secret for now, but _one day_...

The letters of a man who wasn't doing right by his lover - and never intended to, either.

And then, there on letter number seven, she saw it. The snippet that she had to reread again and again, because it looked so much like the final nail in a coffin that she couldn't believe it was real.

_I saw Daniel again today. You should be proud; he's growing up to be a fine boy. My wife could never give me the children that I wanted. I tried to love them, but they were always such a disappointment to me. Not like our son. Our Daniel._

She remembered. She remembered the question raised in a book full of lies, the question she'd felt vaguely dirty for even having to pose.

_Did the president want a son?_

But he'd answered her. He'd answered from the heart, spoken so eloquently... sons, daughters, what did it matter so long as they were his children? That was the Jed Bartlet she knew.

And the Jed Bartlet she knew was the real man.

Wasn't he?

She knew the real man - but the public knew a mosaic. A picture put together from all the different pieces they'd read or heard or talked about around the water cooler. And to them, the little snippet that perhaps their president was disappointed to have only daughters was not a laughable fabrication, but a piece of the mosaic as true or false as any other.

A young man with a shockingly familiar face. Handwriting that was a little too close to disregard. A slightly distinctive way of crafting sentences. The tale of a man who'd always wanted a son to call his own...

It painted a picture. A picture that even she, knowing all she did, was finding hard to disbelieve.

CJ closed her eyes, and allowed her head to thump against the desk in front of her.

"What is it?" demanded Josh. She extended the letter to him, without looking up.

She didn't have to tell him what he was looking for. There was a brief silence as he scanned it, and then a grunt of resigned dismay as he came to the same part she had. He handed the letter on to Toby.

"What is it? What does it say?" Sam demanded impatiently. Toby passed it to him with a heavy sigh.

The young communications deputy scanned the letter, and then his face crumpled. With a suddenly violent motion, he screwed the copied letter into a ball and flung it down on the desk. "Dammit! I don't have to deal with this crap!"

He left the room almost at a run, biting his lip as if he was close to crying. Josh rose from his seat, but CJ held him back with a restraining arm.

"Let him go, Josh."

Josh looked worried. "CJ, his dad..."

"I know," she said soberly.

They all were sure they knew their president. Knew him well enough to believe that this ridiculous story, this double life that painted him a liar and a betrayer, couldn't possibly be true. They all believed that.

But Sam... Sam had believed that once before.

And been wrong.


	9. IX

** IX **

The quote was in every newspaper, splashed across every TV screen. Abbey wanted to shut them all out, but even when the news was switched off and the papers buried, the words echoed through her head.

_I tried to love them, but they were always such a disappointment to me._

Her fingernails dug angry red cresents in her palms. The more furiously she told herself to disbelieve it, the more cruelly possible it seemed to become.

She couldn't help thinking back to one night, a long time ago. Over twenty years ago, before Zoey was born - when she was newly pregnant. Lying in bed with her husband at her side, basking in love and contentment. And he'd said, with gentle arms folding around her and a kiss against her hair, "Maybe it'll be a boy this time."

That had been all he'd ever said, and when Zoey had been born he'd cooed over his newest daughter and been so delighted with her, glowing with so much love he was almost painful to look at.

But the memory of those words in the dark lingered with her. Quiet. Wistful. Softly hopeful.

_Maybe it'll be a boy this time._

He'd never given her any reason to believe that he didn't love his daughters with all his soul. He'd never given her any reason to think that he didn't want them, he was disappointed with them, he'd ever for an instant wished that any one of them had been born a boy.

But he _had_ wanted a son. He had.

Abbey remembered, when Zoey was young, feeling vaguely guilty. Oh, not for giving him only daughters, she could never have felt guility for that even if the sex of the babies had been anything to do with her. But for not wanting to have more children, extend the Bartlet brood even further. She'd felt selfish even though he'd never breathed a word about it.

_Dammit, girl, stop it!_ She wasn't going to be that woman. The woman who hated herself for choices she'd made, for sometimes in her life thinking of what was good for herself as well as what would please her family. She was a good wife, and a good mother, and she knew it.

But he _had_ wanted a son...

She didn't believe it. She didn't believe it. She didn't believe it. She didn't believe it.

Jed loved her. Jed loved his girls. He would never do anything to hurt them. He would die before he betrayed them. He'd stood by them through everything the world could throw, ready to sell his soul for his family.

And once, lying beside her in the dark, he'd wistfully whispered _Maybe it'll be a boy this time._

"Oh, _Jed_." Suddenly unable to fight back the tears, Abbey curled herself up in a ball and cried in fear, helplessness and misery.

* * *

It was a composed, subdued First Lady who made her way down to CJ's office later. She'd washed away the last traces of tears and reapplied her makeup. Mustn't show any sign of fear, mustn't give the slightest hint of anything other than absolute trust and belief in her husband. Be the perfect First Lady.

Masks. Wasn't it all too easy to put on masks?

_I tried to love them, but they were always such a disappointment to me._

She knew Jed Bartlet as well as you could possibly come to know anybody. But, when you really got right down to it, how well was that?

CJ was working alone in the dimness. She didn't exactly smile when she saw Abbey, more gave an expression of tired sympathy.

Abbey slumped down into the seat across from her, suddenly feeling as if the tiniest blow might shatter her into a thousand pieces. "Hey, CJ. Am I interrupting?"

CJ pushed the sheet of paper before her away as if relieved to do so, and shook her head. "I'm just working on the briefing for tomorrow."

"In which you will be saying 'We don't want to believe it, but we're damned if we can find any proof it's not true'," said Abbey acerbically. CJ offered her a fragile smile.

"This must be so hard, I can't..." She shook her head. "I can't imagine."

_Of course you can't! Because you don't know, do you? You don't know what it's like to belong to another person so completely, be a part of them for thirty-five years._ It was an act of faith, giving yourself so completely. Faith that the person you were opening yourself to would do just the same right back.

She'd had her ups and downs with her husband before - oh, too many downs to count, it sometimes seemed. But never before had she felt the core of it all, that central faith, to be so shaky.

But shouting at CJ would accomplish nothing, and she was just too bone weary to even try.

"It's, it's... I _don't_ believe it, CJ, I don't," she said plaintively. "But it still frightens me. It frightens me that I've been married to this man for thirty-five years, and suddenly I feel like I don't know him."

She couldn't help it. The tears were burning again, and Abbey was powerless to stop them flowing. She'd never felt so completely helpless, not at the lowest points in her life.

Then CJ was coming over to her, and the press secretary's tentative hug was comfort of a sort. But it was no match for the feeling of safety she'd always been able to find in her husband's arms.

A feeling that she wasn't sure she'd ever be able to feel again.


	10. X

** X **

Sam stared moodily at the words before him, not really reading anything. This was too much. He shouldn't have to deal with this.

He wanted to believe the president.

Scratch that. He didn't want to believe the president. If he didn't believe him then it wouldn't matter if he was wrong. Better to be a cynic than be betrayed.

But it was a betrayal. He'd believed in the real thing, pure and good and mighty. And then he'd found the real thing could still take dents, and sometimes the real thing couldn't stand up to the political thing.

Then he'd believed in faith and honesty. Setting sights high. Knowing who your friends were. And he'd found that some visions were too lofty to believe in, and sometimes you had to hit your friends to save yourself.

And then he'd believed in good men. Whatever else failed, however the system screwed you around, you could know that the men you put your faith in had pure hearts and genuine faith. No matter how many times they stumbled or how many mistakes they made, you could rely on them to do the right thing.

But maybe good men didn't exist either.

And maybe it was all his own fault. He'd always been the little boy, the baby of the administration. Poor, naive, innocent Sam. Still believing in fairy stories. He never learned, did he? Whenever he took a hit, he'd just set his sights one notch lower. Instead of admitting that there was maybe nothing there at all, and he ought to be aiming right for the bottom if he didn't want to be disappointed.

There were words to be written, but he had no inclination to put them to paper. What did it matter, really? Why should he write their lies for them?

The phone on his desk rang, and he glared at it apathetically. Why should he pick it up? It wasn't as if it would be good news.

Masochism made him answer it, and wasn't disappointed. "She's here," said Josh's voice urgently.

"Who's here?"

"Felicity Gerrold. She's making a scene outside the front of the White House."

Ah, worst case scenarios. At least you knew where you were with those.

* * *

They clustered around the TV in disbelief. "She thinks she can get in to see the president like this?" CJ demanded incredulously.

Felicity Gerrold was standing outside the gates with a large crowd of reporters and hangers-on, expounding at length about the hypocrisy and immorality of the president and all who supported him.

"What do we do, Leo?" said Josh, chewing his lip.

"Security'll take care of it."

CJ stared at him. "We're gonna show the world a woman in granny glasses being dragged off by the Secret Service?"

Leo gave her a look. "You'd rather show the world that standing outside the gates and shouting gets you an audience with the president?"

CJ held her head in her hands. "Somebody remind me - did I quit already this morning?"

"Six times so far," Donna supplied.

"Well, I do it again."

"Quiet a second." Josh turned up the volume.

"-President? People of America, Josiah Bartlet is no man fit to lead our country! I'm here to correct a three-decade injustice! I'm here to demand this man pay for his crimes!"

"Gee, this is like listening to Congress in session," Josh said wryly. Leo quieted him with a gesture as dark-suited figures emerged.

"Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to move along," said one of them. Cameras flared.

"I have a right to speak my piece!" she said, folding her arms defiantly.

"Yes, ma'am, but we're going to have to ask you to move along."

She turned back to the cameras. "This is how your so-called president deals with those who speak out against him! Strong-arm tactics and oppression."

"Lady, a guy in a suit politely asked you to move," Josh said aloud. "It's not exactly the Mafia."

Donna nudged him in the side. "Josh, do you remember the conversation we had? About how the little people in the magic picture box can't hear you?"

Josh elbowed her back, and pulled a face at her.

On the screen, two Secret Service agents had taken Gerrold by the arms - and apparently taken her composure with it. She was howling her outrage like a banshee.

"This is the kind of your man you've chosen to lead your country! A man who sends armed men to deal with the voice of objection!" Her face was purple as she shouted. "My sister was used and tossed aside! Used by a dirty old man with no morals and no sense of decency!"

The Secret Service continuedly impassively leading her away, and the camera cut back to a serious looking anchorman who immediately went about the business of further shredding the president. Leo zapped the TV off with an angry scowl.

"Well, I guess that's the breakfast news," CJ observed with a brittle cheerfulness. "Incidentally? I quit again."


	11. XI

** XI **

They all turned to return to their offices - all except Sam, who continued to stare at the blank TV set. CJ and Josh exchanged worried glances.

"Uh, Sam?" CJ said tentatively. "Are you okay?"

He blinked and looked at her with wide eyes. "Did you hear that?" he demanded.

"Yeah, we, uh, we all heard it, Sam," Josh pointedly out slowly.

"No! Don't you see?" Sam demanded excitedly. "She said 'dirty old man'!"

"I'm not sure that's exactly anything to be grateful for, Sam," Leo pointed out, frowning at him in puzzlement.

"Old!" said Sam, as if they were being incredibly dense. "She called him old! She wasn't talking about the president at all!"

CJ laughed, puzzled. "Well, I'll admit the president's well-preserved, Sam, but-"

"He was in his _twenties_, CJ," Sam pointed out. "Yeah, he would have been half a dozen years older than Rebecca Gerrold, but you wouldn't call him a dirty old man!"

"So she misspoke!" shrugged Leo impatiently.

"She was shouting in the street, Sam, it's not as if she was working from a script," agreed Toby, looking at his deputy worriedly. They were all beginning to wonder if Sam was cracking under the pressure.

"No! Don't you get it? We've been looking at this all wrong!" Sam said animatedly. "We knew she must have some kind of a vendetta for pinning this on the president, but we couldn't see what."

"And you... think you can see it?" asked Donna, frowning anxiously at him.

"She said 'dirty old man'!" he repeated. "An old man. Not the president, not Jonathan Bartlet - an _old_ man. We got it all wrong!"

He stared around at them, eyes alight with realisation. "Daniel Gerrold isn't the president's _son_. He's his brother!"

* * *

After he'd finished speaking, the Oval Office was silent.

Sam bowed his head. "I'm sorry, Mr. President," he said softly, not explaining what he was sorry for. He didn't have to. The president nodded in acknowledgement, and touched his arm.

"That's okay, Sam. We can't try to be responsible for these things." He smiled, a sad, reflective look, but a marked improvement over the stony countenance he'd kept these past few days.

"Did you think..." Sam hesitated, not sure if there was a line he was crossing over here. "I mean, did you suspect...?" He shook his head helplessly.

"Perhaps..." The president sighed, and shrugged. "It was obvious as soon as Johnny told me the boy wasn't his. But... in a way, no, I didn't suspect."

Meaning he hadn't wanted to. Sam understood that all too well.

"I'm sorry about the letters, sir," he said quietly. Bad enough to learn by your father's actions that you meant less than nothing to him, but to see it spelt out in black and white... The president just shook his head.

"It was... not a great surprise." He smiled wryly. "No doubt the newspapers will hurry to crucify my father, excoriate him as a way of making amends for attacking me. As if it was ever a question of balance and revenge. It's more complicated than that."

"It's always more complicated than that," Sam agreed. You could learn in the space of a heartbeat that your father was nothing you'd ever thought him to be... and yet he didn't stop being your father. When it came to relationships, good and bad didn't cancel out - only twisted together into ever more complicated patterns.

The president stood up, sighing. "At the end of the day, our fathers are men, Sam," he said softly. "Only men."

"Yes, sir." Sam stood to join him.

"CJ's with the press now?"

"Yes, sir."

"You think they'll believe this?"

"I think Felicity Gerrold'll cave under the pressure," Sam said, with a little more confidence than he felt. "She wants revenge too much to not tell the truth if we push her."

The president rubbed his face. "She has more than a right to be angry, Sam."

"Not at you," he pointed out quietly.

"Maybe not." He didn't sound entirely convinced, but Sam didn't push him. He understood. Maybe none of the others would, but he understood.

It was always more complicated than that.

"You'll let me know when CJ's done with the press?" Sam nodded. "I have to speak to Abbey."

The president clapped him on the shoulder, a gesture of solidarity, and he left the Oval Office.

* * *

"This better work," CJ warned.

"It _will_ work," Josh said determinedly.

"We're gonna be right in front of the press," she pointed out. "If Sam's wrong-"

"He's not wrong," said Toby softly.

CJ frowned at him suspiciously. "How can you be so sure?"

Toby just looked at her, inscruitable as ever. Maybe he knew something that made him certain. Maybe he was just being Toby.

"Okay." She took a deep breath. Sam was right. Sam had to be right. _The president's father_... Suddenly it all made a lot of sense.

The question was, would they be able to prove it? They had only one card to play, and if Felicity Gerrold didn't crack in front of the press, this nightmare might never be over.


	12. XII

** XII **

CJ stepped out before the assembled press. Some of them refused to meet her eyes - others just had the hungry look of reporters with a story in sight. In good times, the press were allies, even friends. But at times of crisis like this, they ceased to be the friendly pack of journalists she had under her thumb, and became mercenaries, ready to cut down anyone and anything in pursuit of the scoop.

She forestalled their questions with a hand. "Miss Gerrold will be here to meet us any moment now. I think we should probably leave the questions until then."

Sure enough, a moment later the doors opened and Felicity Gerrold was escorted in. She looked far more composed than the last time they'd seen her, being hauled off by the Secret Service.

"Miss Gerrold," CJ nodded politely. The woman responded with a sneer.

"I see you finally deigned to face me. Why isn't the president here? Afraid to face the truth?" Cameras flashed and pencils scribbled.

"No he isn't, I think you'll find, because unlike the rest of the country, the president knows what the truth actually is."

"That my sister was seduced, used and abandoned," she hissed angrily.

"Yes she was," acknowledged CJ. "But not by him."

She looked at the press. "As it happens, Miss Gerrold here has a legitimate grudge with the Bartlet family. It's just unfortunate that she's chosen to pursue it in a very unreasonable way."

Gerrold was opening her mouth to protest, but CJ trampled right over her as she'd learned to do with truculent reporters. "I can now reveal that Miss Gerrold has been attempting to pin the president with the sins of a man who's been dead too long to take the blame himself. You people have been making a very big deal of how much resemblance there is between the president and Daniel Gerrold. Well, that's really no surprise."

She smiled softly, savouring the moment. "After all... they share the same father."

CJ was greeted with something she'd always wanted to achieve - an entirely silenced press corps. They all gaped at her, knocked sideways by the bombshell.

Felicity Gerrold's face drained of blood, but she quickly recovered. "Lies!" she insisted shakily. "It's all lies!"

"Actually, no," said the president's voice. "I would say that sounds pretty much like the truth to me."

They all turned - and discovered that the president's voice wasn't coming from the president.

Daniel Gerrold slid his hands into his pockets, and shrugged self-consciously. "Sorry I took my time getting here. It was kind of a long flight."

* * *

Abbey stood in the doorway to the Oval Office, hesitant in a way she couldn't remember being with her husband, since... well, maybe not since their wedding night, or since the first time she'd gone to him to tell him she was pregnant. That feeling that everything had changed, and could they still go back, if they wanted to?

For a soul-destroying second, her husband was still, silhouetted against the windows. And then he held his hands out to her, and smiled.

She ran to his arms, buried her head against his chest. "Jed, I'm so sorry," she said, voice already choked with tears. How could he ever forgive her? How could she forgive herself?

_I doubted you. Oh, Jed, how could I ever have doubted you?_

But when she looked up into his eyes, they were as warm and gentle as ever. "I love you," he said simply.

And all the words, the apologies she'd been meaning to force out, suddenly didn't seem so important. "I love you," she said instead. And really, didn't that say everything that needed to be said?

She laid her head against his chest again, and they stood that way for a long time.

There was a knock at the door and they both turned. Charlie dipped his head at them apologetically. "Mr. President?"

"CJ's finished with the press?" he asked, releasing his wife with an apologetic kiss.

"Yes, sir."

"And Felicity Gerrold changed her story?"

"Yes, sir." Charlie smiled, but the president's expression was more difficult to read. It was hard to say if he was relieved by this new development or not.

"Okay, Charlie." He nodded to himself.

"Uh, Mr. President?" Charlie gestured to the door behind him. "There's someone here to see you."

The president frowned in puzzlement, and the young man shuffled shyly inside. Abbey let out a small gasp at the sight of him, and turned it into a nervous laugh.

He ducked his head. "Uh... pleased to meet you, Mr. President. I'm, uh, I'm Daniel Gerrold."

The president suddenly broke into a genuine smile, his first real beam in a long time. He stepped forward, hand extended. "Come in! Take a seat on the couch, son. And I think, under the circumstances, you'd probably better call me Jed."

Abbey watched the two of them together as they settled side by side on the couch, and smiled.

**End**


End file.
